Monopoly

OTTAWA, June 18 (Reuters) - Canada's Conservative government on Monday won its appeal of a lower court declaration that said it had broken the law in the way it ended the Canadian Wheat Board's grain marketing monopoly, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz stated. The wheat board monopoly is scheduled to end on Aug. 1. Backers of the wheat board are still pursuing a separate court case to try to get the law suspended. The Dec. 7 Federal Court declaration said Ritz had...

BEIJING (Reuters) - China must separate the conflicting promotion and prevention roles of its state tobacco monopoly to reduce smoking-related deaths, which number as much as 1 million a year, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday. With more than 300 million smokers, China is the world's largest producer and consumer of tobacco. The government has pledged to curb smoking but its efforts have had little success. The country's...

How many of those decrying the terrible service and inefficiency of the Postal Service still support President Clinton's health-care reform? Critics blame the Postal Service's poor performance on the government's dictum that protects its monopoly over the mail. Don't Clinton's health-care alliances and "managed competition" also create a government monopoly? Why do so many complain about the service they get from a 29-cent stamp and yet so few seem worried about the health care they would receive and the price tag...

Visitors to downtown Tinley Park are getting an artsy way to take a load off. Hippos, geese, birds and more are clamoring for attention with "Let the Games Begin!" as the theme for the 11th annual Benches on the Avenue program. "Hungry Hungry Hippos," "Duck Duck Goose" and "Angry Birds" are among the variety of family games depicted on wooden benches designed by area artists, from young amateurs to mature professionals. Benches are located in front of businesses along Oak Park Avenue...

It was sad, but perhaps not surprising, to see a formerly respected congressman become a shill for SBC ("Telecom rules have to change," Voice of the people, April 6). What J.C. Watts Jr., the consultant, failed to point out is that the government-set wholesale rate he and his phone-monopoly employers find so intolerable is based on an analysis of data that SBC itself presented. That rate includes the cost for providing service plus a profit. In other words, the claim that SBC is providing a service at a price...

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's new telecommunications regulator IFT said on Friday it had opened a probe into possible monopolistic practices in the country's internet services market following a complaint, the federal government's official gazette said. The IFT also said it is also probing the distribution and sales of content transmitted domestically by internet and pay television companies. Billionaire Carlos Slim's America Movil dominates Mexico's...

PARIS (Reuters) - GDF Suez , with its traditional European business under pressure, plans to focus investment on power production in fast-growing emerging economies and on Europe's shift to renewables and energy efficiency. The French former gas and power monopoly plans to invest 9 to 10 billion euros per year in the next three years, of which only 2.5 billion to maintain existing assets, with a focus on small to medium-size acquisitions. In 2013, GDF invested 7.5 billion...

* Big Four banks have long maintained a stranglehold * Range of reforms carried out in cities like Wenzhou * Related goal is to tame underground lending market April 3 (Reuters) - China's state banks make money "too easily" and their monopoly on financial services has to be broken if cash-starved private enterprises are to get access to capital when they need it, state media cited Premier Wen Jiabao as saying on Tuesday. Wen's comments,...

By Mark Gleeson CAPE TOWN, Oct 6 (Reuters) - The world of rugby will be taking cumulative deep breath after the thriller in Johannesburg on Saturday but while the action was a perfect advertisement for the game, the result will send shudders around those hoping to de-throne the All Blacks. New Zealand's superiority showed yet again despite the best efforts of South Africa in the decisive game in the Rugby Championship. The 38-27 win not only handed the All Blacks...

The maker of the board game Monopoly threatened to sue the creator of Ghettopoly, in which "playas" build crack houses on Cheap Trick Avenue instead of hotels on the Boardwalk. "We want to make it clear that Hasbro has absolutely no connection to the reprehensible `Ghettopoly' game," Frank Bifulco, president of Hasbro's U.S. Games, said Friday. The game's creator, David Chang of St. Marys, Pa., did not respond to an e-mail from The Associated Press on Friday, and there was no answer at a...

BEIJING (Reuters) - A heavy-handed approach is needed to halt a rise in monopolistic behavior by companies in China, a senior official said on Tuesday, in a sign that an antitrust campaign which has already ensnared top global firms could get tougher. "Only heavy punches will work," Xu Kunlin, head of the anti-monopoly bureau at the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said in a speech to a business forum in Beijing. "It's easy to find...

Now comes the hard part. Federal Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson has made clear in his findings of fact that the government proved its landmark antitrust case against Microsoft Corp. Not only does Microsoft have a monopoly in personal computer operating systems, but it arrogantly used that monopoly to bully competitors, stifle innovation and harm consumers. Consumer choice was limited, Judge Jackson said, because competitors--cowed or scared off--never developed products that might have been...

As a creative director at Cramer-Krasselt (think Don Draper without the booze or cigarettes), Derek Sherman must get into people's heads. It's his job to figure out what makes people buy one product - Monopoly, let's say - over another. For Sherman, that investigation starts with questions. What makes Monopoly so special? Why would someone want to buy Monopoly over, say, Uno? If Monopoly went away tomorrow, what would the world be missing? This piece first...

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece on Monday completed the sale of a major stake in state-controlled gambling firm OPAP to Greek-Czech fund Emma Delta, a condition of the country's ambitious asset sales program under its multi-billion international bailout. Athens sealed a deal to sell its 33 percent stake in OPAP to Emma Delta for 652 million euros ($870.52 million) in May but rows among opposing investors over the fees OPAP would pay its partners for technology and printing...

Monopoly, with Risk, forms board gaming's Pillars of Hercules. Where Risk dominates through might, Monopoly dominates with money. That's the American way. (OK, maybe both ways are pretty American, but money is the one chosen more often--just ask Canada.) The king of board games, Monopoly is mostly a game of numbers. To that end, here are a few numbers to keep in mind according to Hasbro, which manufactures and markets the popular Parker Brothers property trading game: - More than 5.1...

Dish Network chairman Charlie Ergen said large media companies are "essentially monopolies" whose market power is pushing pay TV providers toward consolidation -- and added that a merger with DirecTV "makes a lot of sense strategically." "You have a general momentum, a gravity toward consolidation because programming rates are going up four times the rate of inflation," said Ergen, speaking on Dish's second-quarter earnings call Tuesday. ...

Hasbro's new Monopoly Empire ($19.99) , in which players compete to amass the most big-name brands, such as Coca-Cola , Xbox and McDonald's, can be completed in as little as 30 minutes, compared with the hours that traditional Monopoly could take as players accumulated hotels, railroads and utilities while trying to bankrupt opponents. - The Wall Street Journal, July 23, 2013 The Internet is aghast at the concept of a Monopoly game that...